


Revenge, Betrayal, Revenge

by AlixxBlack



Series: Trope Challenge [20]
Category: Carry On Series - Rainbow Rowell
Genre: Agatha Wellbelove Bashing, Dubious Morals, Friend Fluff, Gen, Modern AU, Other, a character gets drugged, agatha is the villain, anti agatha wellbelove, but nobody gets hurt or assaulted, everyone is slightly ooc, everyone is slightly ooc sorry, fantasy au adaptation
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-01-12
Updated: 2020-01-12
Packaged: 2021-02-27 04:55:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,481
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22231405
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AlixxBlack/pseuds/AlixxBlack
Summary: Trope #23 of 30, per the list seen on Twitter in a series of tweets by @ selpukuPrompt: fantasy AU: ‘I’m a sacrifice chosen to be given to a dragon but turns out the dragon is kind and doesn’t want to eat me’**Author took liberties when using the prompt, so be aware that the fantasy aspect is not applied in this particular use of the prompt**
Series: Trope Challenge [20]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1534436
Kudos: 3





	1. Revenge (as told by Agatha)

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: All credit where credit is due to the original author and publishing company. I am not writing this for any sort of profit in any way. The credit for the prompts to the original poster as well.
> 
> Disclaimer(b): I took many liberties with this fantasy prompt. Instead, this is a modern au where magic does not exist and the characters are just regular folks, using canon aspects of the story in different ways. Simon Snow's role in the story is meant to simulate the "dragon" in this story, and Baz is meant to be the supposed "sacrifice" of the story.
> 
> Trigger Warnings: This story depicts Agatha as being very mentally unstable with very dubious morals. While no assault or violence occurs, Agatha does drug another character and effectively kidnaps that character to serve her own selfish purposes. If you don't hate Agatha, then this is probably not the story for you. If dubious morals may upset you, specifically the instances of drugging and kidnapping, please be do not read any further. I want you to be mentally well and comfortable more than I want you to read my story.

**REVENGE (as told by Agatha)**

For weeks I’ve been flirting with him and dropping hints. For weeks I’ve hiked up my skirt when he was around and wearing high heels that I hate more than I hate myself. For  _ weeks _ I have been practicing my seductive whisper and eating like a rabbit to lose a few extra pounds. I did all of the things.

Finally, I lost my patience and I asked him out: Tyrannus Basilton “Baz” Grimm-Pitch.

Not only does he come from a wealthy family but he’s an absolute genius in the classroom  _ and _ he’s beyond talented on the football pitch. I am embarrassed to say that he’s the real reason I got into cheerleading. But yeah, I asked him out.

It was a miracle of sorts because he said, “Sure, yeah, that’s cool. Yeah.”

Was it dreamy? No way. Was it smooth? Not a chance. Was it a date, though? Yes. Yes it was!

We exchanged numbers and arranged a coffee shop date, how cute, right, and I was ecstatic. I bragged to my girlfriends on the squad and posted cryptic messages about it all of my social media accounts. I doodled “Agatha Wellbelove Grimm-Pitch” on scrap paper and then kissed it with my lipstick and sprayed the pages with my perfume. Someday when I married Baz these would be cute tokens of love to share with him.

That was the honeymoon phase over the second I walked into the coffee shop and found Baz laying it on thick with the barista behind the bar. I could spot that type of longing gaze ten miles away because I saw it in my own eyes every single day waiting for Baz to notice me. When I sneak to the counter to greet Baz, I see him passing his number across the counter. It isn’t until I tap his shoulder that he even looks away from the employee.

I lost my appetite and asked if we could go for a walk instead. Baz had already ordered my favorite gingerbread flavored chai, and gestured to the barista working. He gawked openly at him while I tried to make conversation and make it obvious that he was supposed to be on a date with me, but it became painfully obvious to me he never noticed me because I just couldn’t be what he wanted.

I wasn’t a guy.

Baz ended our date by walking me back to my car and saying he’d love to hang out again sometime, maybe at the coffee shop again so that I could have my favorite drink. He played it off so well. I was almost convinced, honestly.

I spent the whole night crying afterwards. For the next week he shared posts that clearly indicated that he had a new muse, and I checked his connections and friends list and follows to see if he was in contact with that barista from the coffee shop. It wasn’t surprised to see that he was and so I knew that despite the whispers at school suggesting that Baz was enamored with  _ me _ he was really obsessed with  _ barista who? _ When the truth came out that Baz and I weren’t an item, I wouldn’t be able to live it down.

No, Baz had to go. 

That’s why I talked him into a picnic to “de-stress” from the mid-term tests. He claimed to be super interested and very excited. As he kept upselling his enthusiasm, the more I assured him I had everything covered. I’d bring the food and the drinks and we could use my dad’s car, and promises upon promises. What he didn’t know is that every promise I made to him, I made a promise to myself.

I drugged him. I kept him buzzed with screwdrivers because I’m classy, and I laced each of his favorite foods with some Xanax that I nicked while in the locker room while at school. I did research in books to make sure that nobody could easily track my movements so that I wouldn’t overdose Baz before I got him to The Dragon Cave.

The Dragon Cave is a den in the countryside where runaways go when they feel like that have nothing left to live for but aren’t ready to die. Nobody who goes to The Dragon Cave comes back, at least not back home, and it’s a sanctuary of sorts, apparently, because the government cannot and will not pursue any investigations about it. That’s why my plan for revenge is perfect. Nobody will look for Baz if I tell police that he admitted that he was scared to be openly gay and had discussed running away. They would look for him, and then I’d just have to drop a hint that he may have been talking about The Dragon Cave. I’ll play dumb. Nobody will suspect me and nobody will look for him.

And nobody will choose a goofy barista with a crooked smile over me again.


	2. SACRIFICE (as told by Simon)

**SACRIFICE (as told by Simon Snow)**

I was the first true resident of The Dragon Cave. I was an orphan that couldn’t keep a foster family to save my life. I was goofy, chubby, and socially inept. My life really fell apart when a hacker group called Insidious Hum-Drum ran by a man named Davy Wilson, frequently known as Snow Mage in the ranks of his hacker army, became a part of my life. According to public records and media statements, he was able to “run any system cold in less than ten minutes like it was his magic power.” Hence his name.

Before he could be sentenced for any of his crimes, Davy “Snow Mage” Wilson announced that he has a son in the foster care system named Simon Snow and was hoping to get back in contact with him to make amends before going to jail. Obviously, I was just a teenager, so I didn’t have much of a say, and I had to meet him. Every conversation with me made me doubt myself more than I already did, and every time he called me his son I felt myself die a little bit more. It was clear to me that there was nothing in my life worth waiting a damn. When Davy was finally imprisoned, I ran away.

I didn’t find The Dragon Cave on my own. I had never even heard of it. It was Ebb who found me. I was barely moving when she pulled over in her beat up truck with a fresh bottle of water and a blanket. She was so tall and soft, I could’ve hugged her if I wasn’t on the verse of passing out. She asked me what I was doing and I told her I didn’t know but I couldn’t go back. Ebb was just a lady who lived off the land. She took me to her home, a cave on some sanctioned property that effectively made The Dragon Cave its own entity. Crimes that occurred on the property could not be charged by outside officials unless approved by the property owner, and investigations being conducted for crimes committed outside of The Dragon Cave could not come inside without the same permissions from the property owner. Even in matters of missing children - like me.

Nobody searched for me, though, and Ebb eventually started raising me on her own. She taught me how to live off of the land and introduced me to some of the other runaways she’d picked up. Ebb drove the back roads often trying to see if there was anyone in need of her help. I’ve never met someone I loved the way I loved Ebb. She is the parent I wanted growing up. I knew something was wrong when she would take longer vacations to the city to visit her brother, who did not want to be tied down to the role of keeping The Dragon Cave a protected piece of land for the family name. In due time, Ebb came to me with a stack of papers and a pen saying that she wanted to make me the heir of The Dragon Cave because she thought of me as family and wanted me to be able to take care of future runaways when she’d be gone.

She didn’t need to tell me that she was dying because I knew. Ebb never thought about the future that far ahead. Ebb taught me to live day-by-day because getting consumed by the future was the “pitfall of man.” Her spiritual faith and love of the here and now made it impossible for her to worry about the future. She would only do it if she was dying.

And she earlier this year. The wound of her loss is fresh and stinging even now as if it happened yesterday, but caring for the runaways keeps me going. Teenagers and adults come here because they need something to be happy about and I give that to them the way that Ebb gave it to me. Some of them come high on drugs, some of them come straight from mental institutes, but many come because they’ve simply had enough of the expectations and rules of the traditional world beyond the property lines of The Dragon Cave. I can’t even say that I blame them. I don’t remember a happy moment in my life before I came here.

That said, I’ve never been faced with someone bringing someone else here.

“I’m sorry, but I don’t understand,” I say with wrinkled brows and a frown. “Why couldn’t this man bring himself?”

The girl flipped her hand and helped the barely conscious man keep standing. He mumbled something at her and she stomped on his foot. Everything about this feels wrong to me.

She smiled and tried to work some of that criminal magic I came to know about my father. “He’s struggling with his identity and can’t handle the pain of hiding in plain sight anymore. He wanted me to help him get here because he’s not sober.”

“Do you have any proof that he wanted to do this when he was sober?”

“No, he only talked about it with me face to face,” she says in a tone that is too smooth to be truthful. That’s something I learned very young. The best liars are the ones that sound the most convincing. I can’t shake the feeling in my gut that something isn’t quite right here, though. I’m looking at the slender gentlemen she’s holding up. He towers over her and he isn’t leaning into her, she’s holding him around his waist. He’s not even holding her back.

To divert focus away from her lies I ask her to bring him to a nearby bench carved into the walls of the cave and ask her to set him down. As she’s walking him over I ask for her name and she hesitates. She didn’t plan for this kind of question, and she wants to lie, but she doesn’t. “Agatha.”

“And what is your friend’s name, Agatha?” my question comes out quietly out of respect for the drugged man in front of me. She doesn’t answer right away so I ask my question again. “Does he have a name?”

But when I turn around she is moving away from me.

“Agatha, it is going to be easier for both of us if you tell me the truth. What is this guy’s name?” I ask again more directly. I never wanted to be an authority figure, but I do well with it now that the power is mine. It suits me, too, because I don’t rule with an iron fist.

I rule with a beating heart. Something this Agatha seems to lack.

“He can’t come back,” she shudders, covering her mouth and gawking at him as he sways back and forth. It could be an hour or more before he comes to, depending on what he’s taken - assuming he actually took something. Though it hurts me to consider this, I truly believe that this man has been drugged and dragged her against his will.

Agatha is not helping, so I turn to the man and ask him. “Hello, sir, you’re at The Dragon Cave, and I was just curious if you asked to come here today with your friend Agatha.”

“Don’t you dare listen to a word he says. He’s high!” Agatha screams behind me. I glance over my shoulder and note that she’s not moving. She goes on to start crying and saying that he wanted to come and why don’t I trust her. At that point, the man starts laughing.

He mutters softly, “Get rid of her.”

I hold his chin and steady his gaze. Nodding my head, I tell him that I’ll make sure she leaves and help him right away. Walking myself over to the panicked Agatha, I play the words I’m going to say to her in my head at least twice before I say them.

“You are no longer needed here at The Dragon Cave and I’m going to ask that you leave and never return, thank you.”

“What?” she gasps.

So I repeat myself slowly. “You - are no longer - needed - here - at The Dragon Cave. I’m going to ask that you leave - and never come back.”

Agatha doesn’t move right away, but I stand between her and her victim, a necessary sacrifice of protecting the victims that find themselves in my care. He may not have come on his own but he’s here now. “Go.”

This is the final command I need to make because she runs away, crying the whole way. She doesn’t come back, though, and that’s all that matters to me. When I am sure that she won’t return, I walk back over the gentleman to find him trying to shake himself awake.

“Hello,” I say somewhat loudly to make sure he can hear me.

“Hey,” he groans.

“My name is Simon. I’m the keeper of The Dragon Cave. Do you know anything about this place?”

I’m not expecting him to say anything, since it seems like he didn’t come on his own, but he might nod. I wait silently for him to respond but nothing comes. He stands and holds himself against the wall for a long time before he sits down and asks for my name again.

“Simon,” I tell him.

“Baz,” he says back, offering his hand.

“I’m sorry to ask this again, but I just need to know if you can here willingly so I can help you,” pestering him is not my goal but I want to get what I can from him while he’s talking. Thankfully, he seems mostly coherent and sort of smiles before responding.

“No,” he starts, “but I’m not in a hurry to leave. You got a kitchen somewhere in this cave?”


	3. REVENGE (as told by Baz)

**REVENGE (as told by Baz)**

When Simon takes me through the cave, leading me to a completely underground kitchen, I think on all the times I judged The Dragon Cave without seeing it or even really understanding what it was meant to provide. Simon sits with me while I eat and remains silent, for the most part. He makes a comment here and there when people walk by and ask about me, “the new addition.” Simon explains that many people who come to The Dragon Cave don’t leave for long periods of time. I ask about the ones who leave early, and Simon shrugs it off.

“I don’t know much of anything. When I came here, I was just like everyone else. Ebb, who took over the cave to keep it in her family, died and I was the next closest to family she had, so I’ve only just started running The Dragon Cave,” his voice is scratchy, in a way, but more than that his voice is raw. I find that I’m captivated by it. There is a moment where we hold one another’s gaze, but Simon breaks it quickly. I don’t take my eyes off of him.

Taking in a breath, I return to the original topic. “Do people who leave sooner rather than later come back?”

Simon shakes his head. “I don’t want to keep track of that stuff. Ebb didn’t keep much track, either, and I just think it demeans the people that are here. They come here because they don’t feel valued on the outside. When they are here, they don’t have to worry about being a number on paper or a list of traits someone else put together.”

During this lull after his reply, I really think about my life so far. My mother was revered as an attorney when she was alive, and my father tries to take care of me and make me the best man I could possibly be… But…

Is that kind of life worth it? I’m great at football and school. I can socialize with the best of any social group. I have that barista’s number in my phone and a relationship on the bring of forming, which teenagers are often wont for. There’s plenty going on that I should be excited to enjoy.

“Do people have to leave?” I ask.

“No,” Simon smiles not just with his lips but in his words. “This is home to anyone who wants or needs one. I will never make someone leave unless they do something that puts anyone else in danger. The only people who have been asked to leave were asked to do so for their physical health, and even then, they are allowed to come back once they are healthy again.”

Simon’s red hair sits in curls against his forehead, his arms are crossed over the brown jacket keeping him warm, and he just looks so comfortable. Being here is natural to him, helping these people is easy to him - Simon belongs in this role. He may not realize how perfect it is that he’s in charge of a place like The Dragon Cave. I’ve heard my fair share of stories.

“I think Agatha brought me here because I don’t like her back,” I declare. “I think she figured out that I am gay.”

Despite dating boys under the guise of really strong friendships and fleeting acquaintanceship, I’ve never ever actually address my sexuality with anyone directly. I’ve made jokes and responded to jokes in equal jest but never confirming or denying anything for anyone. At the end of the day, too much has been left to the imagination for those may want to know with certainty.

For someone like Agatha, really.

“Is it bad that I’m not surprised?” Simon asks me, looking as if he really doesn’t know if it is appropriate. It makes me wonder how long he has been here.

“No,” I start, “she is known to be dramatic about everything. She wants to be special but she doesn’t know how to be special on her own.”

Simon laughs for a moment, standing up soon afterwards. He seems to contemplate something before he says that it sounds like Agatha needed the cave more than me. He might not be wrong, but I think Agatha bringing me here may be the best thing that’s ever happened to me.

“So, since I’m here, what happens next? Is there like a meeting or something?”

There’s nothing, of course. Simon says that I’m here now and I can do whatever I want whenever I want wherever I want. The only thing Simon needs to do is help me find a place to sleep in the tunnels. There were plenty of rooms carved out of stone to ensure there was always a room for someone when they would arrive. “We won’t go pick a room yet. You can wander the cave and get used to it as you wish. I’m going to go to the greenhouse to help because some of our gardeners left a few weeks ago, so we don’t have enough hands out there.”

“Can I come?” I ask quickly.

“Definitely,” he says with a kindness in his voice that makes my heart race. Simon is very obviously a good-hearted man. I think I’m going to learn a lot from him while I’m here. Agatha brought me here to get rid of me, sacrificing her feelings for me for the comfort of thinking nobody else can have me, but she only put me on a path that I didn’t know I needed.

If anything, the true revenge story is mine. I’ll get back at her by staying here and never going returning to my old life. All that glitters is not gold and the same was true about my life. It was good but I wasn’t invested in anyone or anything. All she has given me is a chance at a new life under the care of Simon Snow, guardian of The Dragon Cave.


End file.
